Fall
by LesMisLoony
Summary: Montparnasse and Eponine fluff. That's right, fluff. With almost no context or content. Because MontyPonine is darker and more interesting than MariusCosette, I guess.


The summer had lasted longer than usual. The rich were complaining that they had unpacked their winter clothes for nothing while their children complained that it was almost November and there was little chance of playing in snow. Beneath these fortunate and outraged groups, the Parisian poor were content. If summer stretched on, so could their threadbare clothes and their meagre supplies.

This particular day, however, was beginning to show signs of the belated winter, for though the sun shone with yellow warmth, an icy wind shivered through the trees in the park. Éponine curled her cold hands into fists as she made her way through.

She didn't really have a destination, but somehow she had ended up in this tiny park, hardly bigger than a garden, and here she saw a deep pile of leaves that had gathered before a line of bare trees. The tree above waved its nude branches at the girl; she imagined that it was mourning over its lost grandeur.

But there was no need to let these fallen leaves, heaped together so conveniently, go to waste. In a burst of silliness Éponine spun around and dropped backwards onto the pile with a satisfying crunch, wiggling around and waving her arms, gathering the leaves over her body until she was completely buried beneath their itchy weightlessness. When the last of the crinkling stopped, Éponine opened her eyes and stared blankly at the splotches of near-translucent shades of brown that covered her face, emptying her mind, concentrating on nothing but the slow rise and fall of her own chest. For a moment, she wasn't worried about her father or her sister or finding food. For a moment, she just existed, a silly girl recapturing her childhood by acting on a mindless whim.

The cold ground beneath her head echoed with the approach of footsteps, bringing her back to herself. Éponine heaved a weighty sigh.

The intruder stopped, obviously standing close to Éponine's feet. She held her breath, wondering if he had spotted her. What if the breeze had revealed an elbow or a toe in the leaf pile? She clenched her eyes and waited for the sound of the stranger's retreat.

"I guess I can set fire to this pile of brush," the stranger said loudly, breaking the stillness, and Éponine found herself grinning from her hiding place despite the alarming words. The voice was familiar—it was Montparnasse.

Neither of them moved for a long moment, but Éponine fancied she could hear the young dandy's light breathing. At length, he spoke again: "C'mon, Éponine, I saw you flailing around in there." But she kept her silence. "Éponine," he said again, almost whining, dragging out the last syllable of her name like an upset child.

"F'you want me out, you'll have to come get me," she teased, still keeping herself still.

Montparnasse groaned loudly, and with a huge thump he collapsed into the pile at her side, scattering leaves and partially uncovering Éponine as he landed.

"Welcome," she grinned, turning her head to see him. Montparnasse was wrinkling his nose so fiercely that it contorted his entire face, holding his hat over his chest with one hand and carefully pulling leaves out of his hair with the other. Éponine chuckled and tucked a scarlet leaf into his buttonhole. "There you go. Now you're all decorated for autumn."

Montparnasse smiled slightly at the leaf. Turning his head to face her, he affectionately brushed a hand over Éponine's cheek; she seized the arm and draped it over her like a sash, hugging it and scooting closer to him, resting her chin on his shoulder. She sighed contentedly; Montparnasse smiled again and wiggled his fingers at her hip. Éponine could not help but shiver at the touch, tender both in its delivery and its location, but if he had asked she would have attributed it to the chill breeze. "'Parnasse," she said fondly.

"_Mont_parnasse," he corrected her.

She grinned. "Mon 'Parnasse," she said, hugging his arm more tightly. "What're you doing here?"

"Nothing," he replied, "same as you. Except when I do nothing I try not to look a fool in the process."

She slid an icy hand into the warmth of jacket pocket. "It's almost Christmas."

"In two months."

"Well," said Éponine, "almost."

"I hadn't thought about it."

"Not even to get me a gift?"

Montparnasse laughed. "A gift, eh? No, I hadn't thought about it." He began running his thumb over her sharp hipbone; Éponine trembled again with a kind of pleasure. "I've never celebrated Christmas."

"We used to. You leave a shoe out at the hearth and Père Noël puts money in. But only if you're good."

"So that excludes me, doesn't it?" said Montparnasse, smirking.

"Well," Éponine said importantly, "it was really my mum putting the money in there anyway. I think she made the whole thing up. So—"

"Still excludes me," Montparnasse interrupted. "I've got no mother."

"Well then, I suppose _I_ shall have to put money in your shoe."

"The whole thing sounds stupid."

Éponine sighed, absently tracing the seam of his sleeve with her fingers, staring through the slender branches at the cloudless sky. "There's one leaf left up there," she muttered. "Bright yellow."

Montparnasse followed her gaze. "Clinging on for dear life, I suppose, lest it fall like everything around it." His whole hand was moving across her hip now, his fingers drawing patterns against the rough fabric of her skirt.

Extracting her hand from his pocket, Éponine reached over his arm and patted his stomach. "I don't think leaves think."

"If they did, that one would be terrified."

"Or lonely."

"Lonely?" he repeated, smiling. "So it wants to fall?"

Éponine shook her head. "It doesn't _want_ to," she said, "but it knows it will. All of its friends and family are fallen, and to stay above them is lonely. And frightening."

"You're mad," Montparnasse chuckled.

Smiling gently, Éponine laid her fingers against the hollow of his cheek. His expression changed, and he hooked his thumb into the waist of her skirt, sliding the rest of his hand in after. A small noise, half moan and half grunt, escaped Éponine's lips, and she let her knees drift apart and arched her back into his touch.

Above them, the yellow leaf dropped from the tree, fluttering down to join the ones piled on the ground below.


End file.
